Escapation

It's not about English competence or the lack of it as that Business Week article suggested. It is not about safety and overall helpful locals as suggested in that article's comment. You have to be here and stay a while to understand how safety indeed is a major competitive advantage of Japan. But will a catch phrase like "Tokyo is 10 000 times safer than New York" ever entice tourists to visit? Lack of aggressiveness alone does not make for a tour theme. Even the newest plushiest luxury hotel in Tokyo will not save the day. You may stay in there for a week and feel like a superstar, but you won't stay four days in a row in a high class traditional inn and not feel longing after dat two for something else, including a pool or beach. My friend C who comes in Japan twice a year, exclusively for vacations, is part of a trend that sees Japan, and for good reasons, as a destination for "escapation". She invariably stays in a favorite traditional Kyoto high end inn and marvels each breakfast and dinner at the ravishingly mysterious kaleidoscope of foods. Well, they are mysterious mainly because nobody around can tell her in English what the ingredients are. But as she told me the other day, on the fourth day, you simply can't eat anymore of this superlative cuisine. But you have no choice except eating out. It is high time for her to go back to the dusty trail and move places.

A major reason why Japan can't be a major tourist destination is that tourism infrastructures that are plenty, are designed to meet expectations of most of their major customers, that is Japanese people. Anyone with an experience sharing leisure time with locals will tell you stories that are very similar. They spare a short time into doing a lot of things. Farniente is a sin. An average - read maximum standard - Japanese stay in a single spot is three days. You can spend three days in a natural spa, be delighted the first day, but chances are you won't ask for more after the second and almost feel relieved to move away. Not that what a spa offers is dull, but it is valuable for a very short time, and chances are one start getting bored very quickly. I see myself staying at a sea location for a week and enjoying it inside down. But Japanese bath for 8 days, no way. Pristine beaches with leisure hotels featuring large pools, breath taking sceneries, ample time to decide on ones own when it is time to have breakfast or dinner, veranda and basking under the sunset are things especially younger Japanese will love as anyone else. That's why they go to Hawaii or Thailand. If it were readily available at home, they would stay here. There are such facilities for sure in rare locations here, but something will be missing in the list of requisites, and most probably, flexibility given to the customer will be one of these items. In traditional inns, you wake up at the time fixed by the hosts to have breakfast. Not the time you may may want to have breakfast. Breathtaking sceneries will be another reason to go elsewhere. Japan has some but very few. Overall, concrete and shapeless cities are the main dish more than often, and huge parts of the countryside are simply underdeveloped locations focused on single trades and activities where tourism doesn't fit. I remember still vividly how we rode along the - at times beautiful - coast of Akita up to Aomori, desperately looking to eat fish. They have noodle shops and huge fleets of fish catching boat, but the fish is sent down to Tokyo.

Japan is a place to visit two or three days maximum at the same spot, and very often one will feel it to be enough. It is a place of encounter with spot experiences, not to also enjoy farniente and the dolce vita. The crave for Japan is currently for some people nurtured since the cradle with the land of Japanese anime the ultimate place to be, especially Tokyo. It is, as with my friend C who does not bask in Japanimation, the ultimate destination where to escape from daily routine. As she always say, "only when being here in Japan do I really feel disconnected with the daily grind." It is for some the ultimate escapation place. I sometimes dream of Italy though.

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